With the 2018 provincial election months away, a new exclusive Ipsos poll for Global News finds a majority of Ontarians believe it is time for a change in Queen’s Park.

At the moment, the poll suggests the incumbent Liberals appear to be in trouble with the Progressive Conservative Party holding the lead. But it is the New Democratic Party who holds the momentum.

If an election were to be held tomorrow, the PCs under Patrick Brown would win with 36 per cent of the decided voters, but those numbers are down three points since Ipsos’ last findings in September. The NDP under Andrea Horwath, however, are up six points, sitting at 28 per cent. That finding ties them with Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals, who have dropped four percentage points.

But overall, 81 per cent of residents polled said they believe it is time for another party to take over.

READ MORE: Wynne says Ontario ballot question will be ‘uncertainty’

“People feeling like they’re not sure what’s coming next,” Wynne told Global News in a recent year-end interview. “That uncertainty – that’s the environment we are operating in. So whether the ballot question will be about jobs or whether it’ll be a cost of living, it will be in that area because it’s that uncertainty.”

“If you’re asking me if we need a political change, well, the people of Ontario will decide that.”

While the vast majority of Ontario residents believe change should happen, a number of variables, including key ridings, candidate popularity and a historically high number of people (one in ten) saying they would vote for a party other than the big three, including the provincial Green Party, that could shift voters one way or the other. Seventeen per cent of voters surveyed remain undecided.

The 905 ridings around the GTA appear to be the tightest race. With the Liberals at 34 per cent and the PCs at 32, they are statistically tied factoring in the margin of error. The NDP sit in third with 24 per cent.

The popularity of Horwath is the “wildcard,” according to Ipsos Global Affairs CEO Darrell Bricker. He emphasized that Wynne isn’t very popular and Brown is still relatively unknown. Forty-one per cent of voters believe that Horwath would make the best premier, 37 per cent believe in Brown and Wynne sits well behind at 22 per cent.

What these numbers say is that there is “ample opportunity for these results to shift as the election draws nearer and Ontarians become more familiar with the candidates, leaders and platforms.”

Bricker said the key will be in how the candidates perform during the campaign.

“While Wynne seems to be in a difficult spot, campaigns in Ontario have proven to be highly volatile,” he said. “Wynne is a very tough, proven campaigner.

“Nobody should count her out.”

While uncertainty seems to be the feeling going into the election, Wynne told Global News that she would stay in office if the people were to vote for a minority government.

“If I’m elected back into office, I will do my very best to deliver on our plan, whatever the configuration of the legislature because I believe in what we’re doing and so I’ll work with whoever is in the legislature to make that plan happen.”

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between December 8 and 14, 2017, on behalf of Global News. For this survey, a sample of 829 Ontarians aged 18+ from Ipsos’ online panel was interviewed online. Weighting was then employed to balance demographics to ensure that the sample’s composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ±4.0 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Ontarian adults been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.

Premier Kathleen Wynne has a message for voters who think it's time for a change in Ontario: she is all about change.

It's perhaps a surprising message from the leader of a party that's been in power for more than 14 years, facing an election next June.

"There's always need for change in Ontario," Wynne said Monday in a year-end interview with CBC News. "I believe in good change and we have brought and will continue to bring good change."

Wynne referred to her government as a bringer of change several times during the interview, which focused on the looming 2018 campaign, culminating in election day on June 7.

"I believe firmly that the path that we're on, the changes that we've made, the changes that we've introduced are in the best interests of the people of the province," she said.

Wynne pointed to two key reforms that will launch on Jan. 1: new employment laws, including a minimum wage of $14 an hour, as well as free prescription drugs for children and young adults.

"The changes that we're bringing in on Pharmacare and minimum wage ... have taken time," she said.

"There's more change coming," Wynne hinted. "Stay tuned."

'We are not done as a government'

Wynne would not offer any specifics about what she has up her sleeve. I asked her specifically if she is planning an income tax cut or a full-scale provincial child care program, and she declined to answer directly.

"Everything that we will do going forward is going to be consistent with what we have already done," Wynne said. "There is more to be done. We are not done as a party, we're not done as a government. Exactly what that's going to look like, I can't tell you right this minute."

She said she does want to make progress on covering prescription drug costs for all Ontarians, calling it the gap in Medicare. Wynne and Health Minister Eric Hoskins are "adamant that we need to go forward and help people to be able to cover their medication," she said.

Kathleen Wynne
"There is more to be done," Premier Kathleen Wynne said in a year-end interview with CBC News. "We are not done as a party, we're not done as a government." (Claudine Brulé/Radio-Canada)

"I'm going to continue to push at the national level for a national Pharmacare plan. If that doesn't happen then we have to have a serious conversation about how we move forward."

The government will bring in a budget in the first few months of 2018, but Wynne would not say if she intends to get it passed before dissolving the legislature for the campaign period. "I'll have to leave that till the new year. There are all sorts of factors that will come into play. I can't tell you exactly what will happen there."

Nor would Wynne say whether she will step down if she fails to win the election.

​In 2018, she will be seeking re-election without a number of her key cabinet members, including Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid, deputy premier Deb Matthews and Treasury Board president Liz Sandals, all of whom have indicated they won't run again.

I asked Wynne whether, when she entered politics, she had imagined that she would be the premier who would bring in the sale of wine and beer in supermarkets and marijuana in government-owned shops.

( another reporter questions if people are paying attention to the looming provincial election ? )

With provincial election months away, is anyone paying attention?

Allison Jones and Shawn Jeffords, The Canadian Press
Published Tuesday, December 19, 2017 12:27PM EST

The new year is expected to start the unofficial countdown to Ontario's June election, with key pledges from the governing Liberals kicking in and the Tories working hard to sell their early platform.

Avid political watchers may feel as though the campaign is already in full swing, with the Progressive Conservatives -- ahead in the polls -- already having nominated most of their candidates and releasing their platform more than six months before the vote, and the Liberals flogging their main election message of fairness at every opportunity.

But so far, the majority of Ontarians haven't been paying attention, said University of Toronto political science professor Nelson Wiseman.

"I don't think it's on their radar," he said. Most people won't have even noticed the PC platform being released, he said. "I don't think it matters one iota. Nobody is sitting around leafing through their 78-page program."

That will ramp up in the new year, predicted Premier Kathleen Wynne.

"Once there are set election dates in place then everyone knows when the election's going to be, which is the point," she told The Canadian Press. "But it means that there's more strategic positioning that goes on earlier, I would say. Definitely, as we go through the next session when the legislature comes back in February it will definitely (heat up)."

As of Jan. 1, two of the Liberals' major plans, which will form key parts of their re-election bid, come into effect -- a $14-an-hour minimum wage that would rise to $15 in 2019, and pharmacare for youth under 25 years old.

Those programs are two examples of how the Liberals have been describing their plan as one of fairness and opportunity, a theme that will carry through to June.

"Creating fairness is what I think government exists to do. It's always been at the heart of what I believe about elected office," Wynne said. "Opportunity, when we think about growth and we think about how the economy needs to flourish in Ontario and in Canada, that's about creating opportunity."

Much energy will also be spent in the new year contrasting the parties' plans, Wynne signalled. In the weeks since the PC platform release, the Liberals have already attacked their promises on child care, a carbon tax, mental health funding and a value-for-money audit.

"I think it's only fair to people in the province that they have a sense of what we all stand for," Wynne said. "These next few weeks and months are going to be about yes, making those contrasts, but most importantly, stating emphatically and reinforcing emphatically who we are and what we believe in."

A major factor working against Wynne in the election -- along with her dismal approval ratings -- will likely be that the Liberals will have been in power for 15 years by the time the vote rolls around.

Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown said by now people know what the Liberals stand for, and he will work to get his message out, continuing to flog his platform around the province as he did late this year in an election-style bus.

"I work endless hours and talk at every townhall and every cultural function and every community function I can," he said in an interview. "Certainly we're encouraged by the fact that where we get to know people it's going pretty well for us."

Brown noted that in byelections his party has taken seats away from the Liberals, party membership is up to nearly 200,000 from a low of around 12,000 after the 2014 election, and the PCs have recently fundraised far larger sums than the Liberals.

One of Brown's biggest challenges remains that polling consistently shows half of Ontarians don't know who he is. The Tories have been trying to combat that with TV ads featuring Brown and having him tour the province.

"I'm just going to be myself," he said. "I think there will be closer scrutiny of the three different political parties and the three leaders as we gear up for the election."

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said her party will roll out policies over the next several months, acknowledging their underdog status.

"People see us as the third party," she said. "We don't have the most seats in the legislature...We have the smallest team, but many people say we punch above our weight. That's because we focus on listening to people and trying to bring forward ideas that will bring forward positive changes in people's lives."

At this point,
You have to just throw enough at the wall and hope that something sticks.
That's what I am seeing in the above articles,

Directionless straw grasping in the final stretch just hoping the NDP or PCs screw up

That being said the response to all this is simple.
Lets set aside the usual issues associated with the current government.

Corporate taxes in the States less than 100 miles from the majority of your population just fell 14%....so whats the plan?

The OLP will argue unemployment is low and now minimum wage is up and free drugs for everyone under 25 is "spreading" the wealth,

But you have a Government enjoying Record Revenues who are still unable to balance the budget in an economy they will spend the campaign arguing is "booming".

If business leaves and moves towards a more advantageous tax structure and Government revenue drops of record levels, how will that be addressed?

You can't balance the books now, what will you do if you don't have this revenue stream? Teachers, Nurses, Firefighters, Police, etc all have a stake in what happens if they start cutting spending in some areas to continue to buy votes in others?

The PCs have to argue that the OLP is ill prepared for an Economic Downturn,
Record Spending on Record Revenue and an inability to balance the budget during good times should lend some concern about what happens if the Economy Slows?

Last edited by cosmostein on Fri Dec 22, 2017 10:42 am; edited 1 time in total

The Liberals are pegging their hopes on a gaffe.
They need to make this election about anything other than their record.

The Opposition Parties need to not bite and focus on nothing but their platforms and the record of this Government.

Unbalanced budgets on Record Revenue;
How long till your taxes have to go up again to support this spending addiction?

That's it.

one wildcard is party election spending , from what I've read the liberals aren't doing too well at fundraising and its not clear how they'd pay for there campaign

you'd also have to wonder how much they'd put there own party into debt if it becomes obvious that wynne is not going to get back in anyways

I seem to recall in either 2008 or 2011 federal elections the liberals reached a point where they decided not to drive the party into debt as they weren't going to win anyways

also with the 3rd party spending limits , there won't be as many of those ads if any on tv during the actual election so liberals have to run there own ads

The talk was the Federal Liberals pulled the cord in 2011.
You don't want to saddle yourself in debt and then ask your best and brightest to go further into debt over a leadership race only one of them will win.

It cuts your wings in the next election as the leader needs to spend two years paying off the sins of the past.

The Muslim community has had a challenging year with rising Islamophobia in Canada and the world, Premier Kathleen Wynne told the 2017 Reviving the Islamic Spirit conference.

The year 2017 included a violent rampage at a Quebec mosque, and legislation in that province that would bar women who choose to cover their faces from accessing public services, she said.

“Violence is the worst consequence of the rising tide of Islamophobia and racism in Canada and around the world,” Wynne said to applause. “But what happened in Quebec was not an isolated incident. Police statistics tell us that anti-Muslim hate crimes are on the rise.”

Wynne was introduced at the conference, an annual three-day event that organizers say attracts 20,000 people from across the country, as the first premier to call on the federal government to open the doors to refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict.

Ontario has welcomed more than 22,500 Syrian refugees in the past two years and provided $10 million for supports to help them settle in the province, she said.

“While others, in other countries, have slammed their doors shut and done all that they can to extinguish hope for a better tomorrow, we are keeping hope alive,” Wynne said.

She praised the theme of this year’s conference — Finding Stability in a World out of Balance — as crucial after a year of turbulence.

The Ontario Legislature passed a motion to condemn Islamophobia in all its forms, and her government is creating an anti-racism directorate and released an action plan, she said.

Ontario is building a society that is based on tolerance and acceptance, and awareness that everyone other than indigenous people, came from somewhere else, she said.

“There’s a lot more work to do to create a more fair and more open society right here in Ontario,” Wynne said. “We have to ensure that everyone, whether they came here six generations ago or six months ago, is getting a fair shot at the decent life that they dream of.”

The Liberals are pegging their hopes on a gaffe.
They need to make this election about anything other than their record.

The Opposition Parties need to not bite and focus on nothing but their platforms and the record of this Government.

Unbalanced budgets on Record Revenue;
How long till your taxes have to go up again to support this spending addiction?

That's it.

one wildcard is party election spending , from what I've read the liberals aren't doing too well at fundraising and its not clear how they'd pay for there campaign

you'd also have to wonder how much they'd put there own party into debt if it becomes obvious that wynne is not going to get back in anyways

I seem to recall in either 2008 or 2011 federal elections the liberals reached a point where they decided not to drive the party into debt as they weren't going to win anyways

also with the 3rd party spending limits , there won't be as many of those ads if any on tv during the actual election so liberals have to run there own ads

The talk was the Federal Liberals pulled the cord in 2011.
You don't want to saddle yourself in debt and then ask your best and brightest to go further into debt over a leadership race only one of them will win.

It cuts your wings in the next election as the leader needs to spend two years paying off the sins of the past.

However, Patrick Brown did it.

but Patrick Brown had momentum as liberals unpopular after being in power too long

the Ontario liberals post wynne would be more like the Manitoba ndp or newfoundland pc's and raising funds might be more challenging

they also need to worry that 2018 could result in a minority , and another election could happen in a year or 2 if that was the case , if they were massively in debt they might be unable to run an effective campaign

these parties give off the illusion voters now have more "choice " but when it gets down to reality none of these parties have any hope of electing an mpp ( most polls show other at only 1 or 2 % ) under a first past the post system and likely to take votes away from other candidates who might have a better chance at defeating a liberal candidate

all major party leaders seem to have shown up and made an appearance , is it just me or is there something seriously wrong with Ontario politics at the moment and the optics of this event .

it seems truly bizarre to me that the only possible date to have this convention was literally rate before Christmas , its hard to believe the date was chosen by accident and muslim activists wanted it to occur as close to the major Christian holiday as possible

it would be seen as politically toxic for a politician to dare appear at some of our Christian churches and give speeches or greet people , but apparently a mosque or muslim event is all good and politically correct these days

but when you look at what ridings are seen as too close to call at this point , many are in areas that have large muslim populations
like Mississauga , Scarborough , etobicoke and so on , so the party leaders may feel its politically necessary to show up

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne turns away from the podium after speaks with journalists alongside Quebec Premier Phillippe Couillard after they attended the Confederation of Tomorrow 2.0 Conference in Toronto on Tuesday December 12, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

Ontarians face two major elections in 2018 — on June 7 to elect a new provincial government and on Oct. 22 to elect municipal councils across the province.

What voters are going to have to decide is, do we want more of the same?

Some useful questions to ask are:

Are you better off now than you were four years ago?

Are you happy with the progress being made on major issues such as public transit?

Do the politicians who represent you spend their time working on things you care about, or they care about?

Our view is that after almost 15 years in power, Ontario’s Liberal government is a spent, politically corrupt force that has left the province’s finances in chaos.

It’s so bad two independent, non-partisan officers of the legislature — the auditor general and Financial Accountability Office — say the books can’t be trusted. That the government of Premier Kathleen Wynne is running a multibillion-dollar deficit, despite claims of a balanced budget.

Wynne’s solution to massive hydro bills, created in large part by the Liberals’ bungling of the electricity file, is to kick the problem down the road. Which will result in Ontarians paying billions of dollars more than necessary on their electricity bills over the long term, according to auditor general Bonnie Lysyk.

We know Wynne’s re-election strategy.

Keep her allies in the big public sector unions happy with generous, already signed, labour contracts.

Spend millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money on politically partisan government advertising that would not have been allowed, according to Lysyk, under a law Wynne scrapped.

Accuse Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown of being a right-wing ideologue (ridiculous given Brown’s election platform) while warning a vote for the NDP’s Andrea Horwath is a vote for Brown.

Municipally, the issue isn’t just who will win the mayors’ races, but what kind of councils will they have?

Even more than in provincial elections, the rules for running municipally massively favour incumbents.

So without a major voter revolt, doing nothing will mean accepting the status quo.

We need politicians who care about what voters care about: Good public services delivered as efficiently as possible.

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